It would be nice to blame South American ills on vile commies, but for one small technicality. Munroe doctrine had been adopted 100+ years before communism became political force and American meddling in the Latin American affairs (usually to support most cruel warlord who would be best enforcer for American Interests) were well-established tradition by 1917.
Strangely, though, economically incompetent dictators weren't installed and kept in power by the US or Britain before WW1. Almost the opposite, really, because when your priority is keeping your economic interests safe as opposed to keeping a country from simply going Red, you tend not to support people who will lessen the value of that market.
Eastern Europe lost it's safety net completely. As cruel joke goes, chain was lengthened by 2 meters but food bowl was moved 3 meters, although they are allowed to bark to their hearts' content.
Strangely, a simple search disproves that European Europe has "lost it's safety net completely." Again, hyperbole makes a rotten plank to stand on.
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This source not only goes over various parts of welfare in Eastern AND western Europe, but also notes development patterns of welfare. Such as how Denmark established universal pensions in 1981, which grew and spread to other countries.
By the way, does you not realize you're proving my assumption? 3rd world's conditions somewhat improved, 1st world's conditions somewhat worsened, middle ground will be somewhere South of German safety net but North of Bolivian (I hope). So it would be pretty bleak for you 1st world dweller. Exactly as I said.
Counterpoint: A continuation of colonialism will broaden, not lessen, the divide between rich and poor regions of the world. Europe, having not undergone at least WW2 and having seen its industry and economic systems destroyed, will be richer, though maintaining colonies will be a constant cost. Colonies, a majority of the world, closed to foreign investment and still under the rule of European countries, will be poorer. Countries that are independent will have fewer markets to go into, but will generally have good trade between them. Countries that are in a single sphere of interests will see their main economic ties dominated by one country, but have a stability and growth not found in the most contested countries. Countries like China, with many spheres of interest, will be undergoing constant tensions as the Great Powers fight to keep and expand their interests.
Really, it's useless to "average" what a world would look like, because even OTL is horribly lopsided. "us" 1st world dwellers (and that includes you, if you actually live in Canada) will likely be comparitively richer ITTL, while places like Africa and Asia will easily be poorer.
Would you care to look at economic reforms introduced by those leftists and not at their flowery "Socialism or Death" logic, you would find that their outrageous commie demands are generally within what we consider birthrights here in 1st world. Universal access to education and health care, no child labor, mining royalties at par with Norwegian or Canadian ones. Truly, truly outrageous!
Let's take Venezuela as an example. Before Chavez came to power, some things that "we 1st world" take for granted would be a growing economy with manageable inflation, a working system of checks and balances, moderate political corruption, increased child literacy, food on the grocery shelves (well, that one actually was there before), no child labor, and a working social system to help care for the poor.
After Chavez, some things that Venezuela still doesn't have that we would expect include: no child labor (FARC, minor buisnesses, and drug runners still all use children where they can), a growing economy with manageable inflation (instead of one of the highest in the world and a falling oil output), a working system of checks and balances and manageable corruption (instead of incrediable increases in administrative incompetence, cronyism, and government bias against dissenters, along with requiring a threat of military action to keep from forging election result), increased child literacy (the Chavez government statistics were found to be largely falsified, and the Mission system Chavez started to handle such things has turned into an costly and ignomious failure), food on the grocery shelves, and a working social system (which, based around the Mission system, has largely failed).
Having cared to look beyond the Death to America cries and look at the results of what happens when such a person is not only in power but has access to one of the largest wallets in the world, I can see the results of that rhetoric, and few of them are significantly better while many other areas are worse.
C'mon, organized labor had been plagued with scandals from the very beginning. Outsiders, anti-establishment and often outlaws, labor leaders forged tactical or strategical alliances with mafia for ages, and it did not prevent organized labor from controlling majority of the American labor market in 1950s, when Soviet Allure was at it's height. Saying that shady dealings suddenly became insurmountable obstacle is a little bit weird, don't you think?
Not at all. Presidents were using the FBI to spy on political opponents for decades, but when Nixon got caught at the wrong time, the results were explosive.
Well, isn't this school of thinking applicable in the Shiny New World without communism. Wouldn't ruling elites in any country do their level best to keep those incompetitive unions in check? And such a drag on competitiveness as universal access to health care? Exactly what I said.
Not really. In a world with closed markets due to colonialism, high tariffs to colonial-made goods are going to lessen the competing labor sources, not expand them as in OTL. With tariffs to keep Asian and European goods out, American unions are going to have a much easier time keeping their wins from management than they have OTL, where they must compete with Indian, Chinese, French, and other workers. (Of course, the modern European welfare is state-centered, not business centered like in the US, which in itself could very easily be butterflied away).